


Carrying The Weight

by nwspaprtaxis



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Batcave, Bathing/Washing, Carrying, Fever, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Ice bath, Men of Letters Bunker, Post-Episode: s08e20 Pac-Man Fever, Protective Dean Winchester, Season/Series 08, Sick Sam Winchester, Tenderness, Trials
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-23
Updated: 2013-05-23
Packaged: 2017-12-12 23:07:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/817132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nwspaprtaxis/pseuds/nwspaprtaxis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam’s fever spikes and there’s an ice bath. But Dean’s got it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Carrying The Weight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kettle_o_fish](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=kettle_o_fish).



> _**A/N:**_ So. This one came about one day when my partner in crime, **kettle_o_fish** , messaged me frantically with [this promo](http://spn-party.livejournal.com/164296.html) in which Sam is visible for all of a second or so in an ice bath around the fourth second… I wrote this after watching _8x20 PAC-MAN FEVER_ but before _8x21 THE GREAT ESCAPIST_ technically aired. Essentially, this ficlet was all the things Kettle (and I) wanted to see in the episode but knew Show would never give us. In so many words, this is the way it should’ve happened.
> 
> A million thanks to **quickreaver** for a rock hard beta and taking something that was raw and unedited and rusty from a months-long writer’s block.
> 
>  _ **Disclaimer:**_ Do not own. Am not making a profit. I'm just simply having fun with their psyches and returning them slightly more battered to Kripke and Co. and all that Yada Yada.

After Charlie leaves, Sam pleads exhaustion and slips off to the bedroom he’s claimed as his. He looks pale, drawn, still coughing into the crook of his elbow from time to time. Dean hasn’t seen any more blood but that doesn’t mean jackshit.

**::: ::: :::**

Dean’s at the map table, poring over the laptop and Dad’s journal, elbows planted somewhere in the Arctic, a sweating bottle of beer leaving wet rings all over Russia — or more likely the Soviet Union since nothing in the bunker had been updated since about the time of the Bay of Pigs — when Sam pads in on socked feet.

Sam clears his throat and Dean snaps up his gaze and winces. Sam looks, if possible, even worse. He’s white, all color leeched from his lips, eyes watery and exhausted, and his hair is in desperate need of a weed whacker. He’s even changed out of his jeans and button down in favor of sweatpants and a worn-butter-soft short sleeve t-shirt. He coughs long and hard, almost doubling over, and staggers as he straightens again.

“Siddown,” Dean orders, closing the laptop and rising to his feet. Sam stumbles on coltish legs and half-falls, half-lowers himself into the nearest chair. He drags the green blanket he left on the back of the chair around his shoulders and huddles in on himself like some kind of lettuce wrap or burrito. He tucks his hands into the soft folds. _Definitely burrito_.

He coughs again and this time Dean doesn’t miss the dark, bloody spot bloom on the fabric tucked in his fist.

“I’m making you soup,” Dean informs him.

**::: ::: :::**

When Dean returns, balancing the tray of soup, orange juice, and tea, Sam’s got his head burrowed in his folded arms.

Dean exhales, sets it down where Sam can’t knock it over, and nudges at his brother’s shoulder. Sam groans, lifts his head. “Don’t wanna.” He sounds five.

“Well too damn bad,” Dean says, forcing a spoon into Sam’s hand. Sam is entirely too warm for his liking. “I’m gonna clean the kitchen and when I get back, I want half of that bowl gone.” He can hear the worry and panic bleeding through his words and clamps his lips before he lets more escape. He hesitates, watches Sam listlessly spoon barely a swallow of broth into his mouth before turning on his heel.

**::: ::: :::**

_Five Minutes_. Dean curses himself for being stupid enough to leave Sam unsupervised, even though his baby brother is cresting thirty with more decades than that from the Cage under his belt. It had been five, maybe seven minutes tops and Sam’s on the floor, prone and immobile. Instantly, Dean’s heart goes into panic mode and his brain starts screaming on a loop. _Seizure_. _Gates-of-Hell shit_. _Lucifer_. The possibilities are loud as he skids up to Sam’s side, his kneecaps throbbing dully at the impact against wood and cement.

Dean gets his hands around Sam and rolls his brother until he’s on his back. He makes quick work of checking vitals, pressing shaky fingers hard into the carotid artery. The pulse is rapid and there’s heat pouring from Sam. _Too hot_ , _too hot_ , _too hot_ , his brain chants. He could almost cry in relief. _Fever_. This he can deal with.

Dean takes another deep breath and rises to his feet. _Why did you have to grow so damn big?_ he thinks, as he hooks his hands under Sam’s armpits and pulls his brother’s upper body up from the floor. Dean begins to drag Sam in the direction of the bathroom, walking backwards and bent over with his hands somewhere in the vicinity of his knees. It’s murder on his back but there’s no way he can lift and carry his deadweight brother. Not with those ridiculously long limbs that have at least four inches of height and twenty pounds on him.

He hauls Sam into the bathroom, apologizing softly when Sam’s leg bumps the doorjamb as he turns into the room. He lowers his unresponsive brother’s head onto the bath mat. Switching on the taps as cold as they can go, Dean sprints into the kitchen and fills plastic bags with ice from the ice maker, the emptying machine churning angrily as it tries to keep up with him. He dumps the ice into the claw-footed tub and shuts off the water.

There’s going to be no easy or pretty way to do this and he hopes the tub will be strong enough to withstand the abuse. Dean gets his hands around Sam, drapes both of Sam’s arms across his shoulders, and hoists his brother up. His knees, thighs and back screams at the weight as he lets Sam roll into the tub, making sure his brother doesn’t get a concussion against the porcelain because that’d be the icing on the freaking cake.

Sam sinks under but almost instantly, he’s thrashing and gasping his way to the surface, clawing at the edges of the tub, trying to climb out. Dean arrests him with a hand to the center of his chest and it’s too easy to keep Sam in the bath. His brother’s breath is hitching and catching and wheezing in desperate sobs as he takes thirsty gulps of oxygen. Dean uses the moment to lift Sam’s legs and place them in the tub.

“Wh-wh-” Sam is chattering, now, shivering violently as Dean pries his fingers off the curved lip and settles them in the ice.

“You passed out from the fever,” Dean informs him, his voice coming out too harsh but Sam must’ve heard the fear because he becomes docile.

Dean isn’t sure how long they stay like that, his hand cupping the back of his brother’s soaked head, Sam curled as close as he can possibly get to the porcelain side. Sam’s visibly trembling, still chattering, but he no longer seems as coherent, babbling softly.

“C’ld,” he mumbles, eyes drifting half-mast. “H’rts.” And that’s all it takes.

“Think you can stand? You know I can’t lift you, dude,” Dean says, already submerging his hands and getting them around Sam’s torso again. His fingers throb in the chill and he winces. “Sorry,” he adds gently.

Sam wraps stiff, dripping arms around Dean’s shoulders and to his credit, he gets his feet under him and rises on shaking legs.

“C’mon,” Dean coaches. “Take a step. I gotcha. I’m not letting go. I gotcha.” He’s barely aware of the words coming out of his mouth as he takes a step back, Sam’s foot slowly lifting from the water, clearing the edge of the tub and settling on the drenched bath mat. Sam’s other foot catches against the lip and Dean overbalances, slipping on the slick tile, unable to stop the momentum of Sam’s weight, and they land in a tangled, sprawled heap on the floor. Dean lets out a pained groan at the flare of ache surrounding his right knee, Sam’s sopping weight still on him.

Sam fumbles uncoordinated hands beneath him and lifts enough for Dean to slide out from under, a steady murmur of _sorrysorrysorry_ coming from his throat. With the pressure gone, the pain in his knee subsides slightly. Dean lets out a ragged breath. The knee still feels weak, in that same vague way it has since that time the Leviathans broke his tibia at Bobby’s. He control-breathes from deep within his diaphragm the way Lisa had taught him and he reminds himself that they’re here and he’s fine, except for feeling like his leg is going to snap from under his weight. Sam’s coherent. He can work with this.

Sam is still apologizing while Dean tells him to shut up, easing his brother to his feet. He doesn’t miss the way Sam gropes for the tub, the sink, anything to leverage himself upright, still dripping and shivering, the muscles in his limbs spasming with tiny tremors.

Dean meets his brother’s exhausted, fever-bright eyes. “How about we get you to bed, huh?” he says quietly, tucking himself against Sam’s side, jamming his shoulder under Sam’s arm. “I gotcha. Rudy Hobbit here, remember?”


End file.
